Framingham State student's app accepted by Apple

Sunday

Sep 2, 2012 at 6:00 AM

By Lindsey O'Donnell SPECIAL TO THE TELEGRAM & GAZETTE

If only they made an app for making apps.

Anthony Morla of Shrewsbury is a computer science major at Framingham State University. The 19-year-old recently took his interest in programming from the classroom to the real world through creating an app for the Apple App Store.

Mr. Morla's program, Gratuity Genius, functions as a tip calculator and tip reference guide. With a variety of options for locations, users can choose to calculate tips in the context of a restaurant, hair salon, food delivery and even the car wash. Gratuity Genius also helps users split the bill. Mr. Morla was aiming for his app to be a “simple, useful” tool to help users.

A sophomore at Framingham State, Mr. Morla used his interests in programming, as well as a year of experience in college, to create the app. However, the development process did not come without difficulties.

“The programming languages I was learning in college were different than those required for Apple. I was using the programming language for Java before, so I had to replace that knowledge with programming for Objective-C,” said Mr. Morla. “It's like learning a completely different language. However, sometimes I'm happy to be confused. (Learning) new programming was the formal foundation to understanding what I was doing.”

According to data collected by app discovery services, more than 85,569 unique developers have been given a similar opportunity as Mr. Morla to create their own apps.

The process of applying for Apple App Store utilization of Mr. Morla's app was a struggle in itself. Not only was he required to pay a $100 fee to apply, but his app was also rejected the first time, because of small errors in the programming. However, Mr. Morla quickly fixed the errors before sending the app back to the store to be reviewed again.

All applicants must register as an Apple developer before submitting their ideas. Most of the time developing a typical app is spent on program coding tasks, along with administrative tasks. Apple is extremely specific about only taking apps programmed in Objective-C computer code, and encourages developers to download the template for programming. Furthermore, the process of approval from Apple can take time; for Mr. Morla, it took two weeks.

Eventually, though, Apple accepted Gratuity Genius, and released it two weeks ago as a free app to the public.

As of last year, the Apple App Store featured more than 500,000 apps, about 35 percent of which are free.

Mr. Morla said making an app for Apple is harder than it looks. In February, Apple released a 13-step guidebook, “Start Developing iOS Apps Today.” The book is intended to help aspiring app developers using iOS, the Apple operating system.

In the future, Mr. Morla said he hopes to pursue his goal of programming a game. In the meantime, he said he will continue to advertise Gratuity Genius and make updates to the app based on feedback and reviews, such as creating more location choices for tips.

As far as advice to others who are interested in computer programming, Mr. Morla said self-motivation was the main contributing factor for his success: “You have to have faith in yourself and your abilities. Try to learn as much as you can.”